Bonny Scotland

On the way to Scotland today, for a few days in Royal Deeside, admiring the scenery. Here's a picture of Loch Ness, see if you can spot the monster. I may be off the air for a few days whilst relaxing in the hills.

Tag: Scotland, Loch+Ness, Deeside

mar

PART 1 : ARRANGEMENTS

So now it can be revealed...I was the person meeting mar in Barcelona on Wednesday! It was a close thing though! I arrived in Barcelona on Sunday evening and once in my hotel I tracked down mar's email and suggested we could meet. mar's first response was positive but then she remembered that she had another appointment in her local town during the time I'd suggested. I didn't have any other times so it looked as if it was not going to happen.

I then 'did my stuff' in Barcelona and finished early, so planned to go back to England on Tuesday, instead of Wednesday. I'd already set the wheels in motion, when mar said she could re-arrange and meet in central Barcelona. As luck would have it, I managed to change the plane back to Wednesday evening and so we were now on to meet...


PART 2 : WAITING

Next step was getting from my hotel to the cafe where we'd arranged to meet. mar had arranged to meet me at 14:00 in the cafe and I arrived around 30 minutes early and sat in the sunshine sipping a tall drink and admiring the view of the nearby Gaudi House.

There were a LOT of people around and I found myself staring a LONG time at quite a few people whilst I tried to figure out who was mar and Mr mar, who were both to meet me...Would they arrive together? were they already here? were they that couple sitting over there (no, they're leaving)?

And so it went on until 14:00. I found myself thinking at five minutes to two (hmm its five minutes to go), like it was some kind of rocket ship take-off.

PART 3 : WE MEET!

So precisely at two o'clock, two people arrived and stood outside the restaurant. They were looking in through the door and I was sitting in the sunny terrace outside the restaurant. "Here we go!", I thought, and launched myself towards the two people, "Hello mar?" - I found myself saying - "Its rashbre!". And so with a joyful greeting we started a great lunchtime conversation in the sunshine of Barcelona! Bloggers can meet, even across the distance from London to Barcelona.

PART 4 : RATHER A LOT OF TALKING

I don't think we really stopped talking the whole time. After a few minutes of general introductions (hmm what are our real names?) and a suitable explanation of the craziness of bloggers and meeting via Michele's to Mr mar, we moved away from our first restaurant to another one in the Ramblas, which was a locals' (you have to know it) restaurant which did great Catalan food. Click here to take a look around.

In amongst the general chatter, I learned about the adaptation of Spanish wine from the heaviness of winter to the friskiness of spring and summer, via the addition of a little sweetened water. This is something I've never tried before but will be experiencing back in England this weekend. A kind of 'pre Sangria' season. I also know which of the Spanish champagnes to drink and have experienced food only available in Catalonia.

mar and Mr mar are just as fabulous in real life as the way they come across in mar's lively blog. Of course we talked about 'blogging' but so many other topics and generally having fun.

PART 5 : LEAVING
All too soon we had to split up. mar to go back to her town, Mr mar into Barcelona and me, via my hotel and then back to the airport and London. I liked Barcelona anyway, now its even more fun having found friends in this beautiful city. Thank you mar, for a lovely afternoon!

UPDATE mar's version here

Thors-Tag Thirteen (ish)

I know its supposed to be Thursday 13, but Simon isn't so good with prime numbers and went all the way to 21 in this tag. I feel obliged to post it as a Thursday 13 with an added bonus 8.

1 I am a child of the universe
2 I want very little that I don't seem to attain
3 I wish my friends happiness
4 I hate very little but consider negative energy unappealing
5 I love my partner
6 I fear crocodiles under the bed
7 I hear many beautiful sounds and sometimes my own blood pumping
8 I wonder whether The Marriage of Figaro is a numeric puzzle
9 I regret little and have learned to act in the moment
10 I am not a bad person but I can be naughty
11 I dance like a spider on vaseline
12 I sing sometimes with very strange voices
13 I cry from the rooftops that we can all be amazing
13a I make electrons spin to my thoughts
13b I write in space
13c I confuse myself without losing my smile or sense of wonder
13d I need care and attention to remain in perfect working order
13e I should always live in wide time
13f I start many adventures
13g I finish most cups of tea
13h I tag cq, mar, nat and roger (whom I promote to lower case). But there's no obligation.

Add a comment, trackback or a link if you are a Thursday Thirteener!


Tag: Thursday Thirteen, free link friday

OTA Wordless Wednesday

On the road again

Anansi Boys - of tiger, bird and spider

Some musical soundtracks seem to follow us around. ‘The Supermen’ by David Bowie, pops up in my head from time to time. It starts,

“When all the world was very young,
and mountain magic heavy hung,
the supermen would walk in file,
guardians of a loveless isle
and gloomy browed with superfear
their tragic endless lives could heave nor sigh
in solemn, perverse serenity, wondrous beings chained to life.”

Neil Gaiman starts his Anansi Boys novel with the words “It begins, as most things begin, with a song”, so I feel the lyrics above are somehow appropriate.
Now freeze frame to me, resting from the road in a small and mystical town called Stone Mountain, in Georgia, USA. I was in a small café, sipping Java by a rack of books including the then freshly published “American Gods” hardback by Neil Gaiman.

I soon had a new companion for my journey.

Now anyone who has read Neil Gaiman will know that there are some strange games in his writing and that he can use a colossal palette to describe his ideas and those of his godlike characters. Back to Bowie:

“Strange games they would play then
No death for the perfect men
Life rolls into one for them
So softly a supergod cries”.

And the American Gods book became a fitting backdrop to my journey across the USA at that time, with its story of a released prisoner named Shadow and a set of epic circumstances he finds himself entwined within after sharing a flight with a character called Wednesday. The gods are deciding what to do with America.

But this review is supposed to be of Gaiman’s later book called Anansi Boys, which I just read on my travels. I was hoping there would be some overlap and indeed there is. Some plotline similarities (death of wife opens the first book and death of father is a central point in the later book). There is a significant overlapping character- Mr Nancy. And the story also involves gods, but of a different complexion to the American soul seekers of the first book.

The dead father of Fat Charlie (our initial hero) in the Anansi Boys turns out to be a human form of Anansi, the African trickster god. Fat Charlie (with Afro-Carribean connotations) is surprised to learn that he has a brother, Spider, who has inherited some of their father's godlike abilities. After calling for his estranged brother by talking to a spider, the brother comes to visit Charlie.

A set of pivotal identity theft begins to occur as the brother Spider gets Charlie fired from his job, steals his girlfriend and creates a situation where Fat Charlie is arrested and suspected of murder.

Charlie decides to use magic to remove the unthinking rather than evil Spider, but unfortunately things start to go somewhat awry.

Where all were minds in uni-thought
Power weird by mystics taught
No pain, no joy, no power too great
Colossal strength to grasp a fate
Where sad-eyed mermen tossed in slumbers
Nightmare dreams no mortal mind could hold
A man would tear his brother's flesh, a chance to die
To turn to mold.

Now I don’t want to give away too much plotline, but let’s say the style has good narrative, much humour, clever storytelling and entertaining twists. It does weave a web and part way through I found myself wanting to unravel what was to happen. Gaiman manages to progressively reveal that ‘things are not always what they seem’ and to cross from a netherworld to a real world within a sentence.

The difference from the earlier book is one of scale. American Gods swept across the souls of a nation, whereas this book makes greater reference to family, sibling rivalry and an esoteric form of rites of passage. If American Gods is a thunderclap across a continent – potentially devastating but somewhat impersonal, Anansi Boys is more of a large furry spider on the arm – immediate, very personal, somewhat scary and potentially quite tickly.

Far out in the red-sky
Far out from the sad eyes
Strange, mad celebration
So softly a supergod cries

Far out in the red-sky
Far out from the sad eyes
Strange, mad celebration
So softly a supergod dies


If you like the idea of this, read both books. I happened to read them in the order of publication, I don’t really think it matters in terms of their concepts or from the perspective of continuity. And yes, the lime is relevant.

UPDATE: By popular request, the Glastonbury version of Supermen, from the geodesic dome era.



Tag: book review, writing, Neil Gaiman, anansi+boys, American Gods, supermen

Hola Sayonara!

What else to do in Spain but to go...Japanese!

Yes tonight we are Sushi'd, Karaoked and Zenned out. There is probably a correct order, which I've somehow missed, but never mind.

Suminasen, michi ni mayoi mashita. Nihongo o hanasemasen. Hoteru e no ikikata o oshiete kudasai.

Catalonia and St Piran

This post should have been called 'bacin barca' because I'm in Barcelona at the moment. I was planning to put up a photo from my hotel room looking out towards the nearby Barcelona stadium, which would have created some possible commentary from mar and maybe keda. Unfortunately, I've left my connectybit for my camera in the UK, so I don't have a way to put the picture onto flickr.

Interestingly, mar's Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia which is the eastern most tip of the block normally referred to as Spanish. It is going through some processes right now to increase its autonomy within the Spanish framework. The Catalan flag (yellow and red stripes) is quite often seen on cars in the region and during the repression of Franco the Catalan language (a bit French, a bit Italian) was completely banned. The football club and its colours became the quiet way that people could continue to show there support for the now thriving and heavily industrialised region.

And then to keda's Cornwall, which is the western most tip of the British Isles. Cornwall exhibits some equivalent behaviour on a more modest scale. The Cornish movement looks for more autonomy from England and also has its own flag of St Piran, which is a white cross on a black background.

Maybe its something to do with edges?

royals again

I suppose I should have mentioned, we were sitting only a few rows behind the royal entourage. Simon Fuller and Nicky Chapman were in the royal vicinity. The dozen or so royals arrived to a very short version of "God save 'is mum" and left en mass after about 90 minutes. I noticed more of the royal protection unit sprinkled around nearby rooftops. Eagle eyed can spot a cap badged soldier next to these two policemen.

The concert, live, was pretty good and almost continuous. I gather the television version had been heavily edited with 'Blind Date' or other such televisual feasts and seemed rather poor. Sound at the venue was good, but the small amount on television seems to have a bad sound feed, along with a very blocky and pixellated edit.

Will Young for Julie

Of course, Julie had originally suggested the Princes Trust concert, as a chance to see her favourite Will Young. He sang three songs, two with acoustic guitar and piano accompaniment and one witha band an chorus.

So here, for Julie, is a picture(click it to see enlargement) and a tiny snippet of video from the concert, which I captured on my phone.

Princes Trust

Tonight was a trip to the Princes Trust concert at the Tower of London. Christina will write more about the artists, I'll write more about the venue. We had to drop the car in Knightsbridge and take a taxi for the last part of the journey. The taxi could not take us all the way to the destination beacsue of the roadblocks.

The police were supervising the placement of huge concrete roadblocks all around the area. There were police sniffer dogs and circling police helicopters. We decided to go to a nearby hotel for a coffee before the start of the show. I'd speculated that we may see someone famous hanging out at the hotel.

As we walked into the bar I spotted Barry Gibb (of the Bee-Gees). He was holding discussion with several others.

But then, in walked Robin Gibb - now we had the Bee-Gees! After a drink, we made our way to the venue. More police security, this time on adjacent rooftops.

And soon enough, the concert started, with the two from the bar now on stage.

man trap ?

Part of the fun of blogging is the interaction with others.

We've just had a great bit of fun setting up a 'man trap' (ok an 'author trap' really) to get an interview with a real live author.

Here's how it works.

I published a review of Roger Morris's new book called "Taking Comfort" a couple of weeks ago. Roger seemed genuinely surprised about this and we had some banter whilst he tried to penetrate the cordoned off area of internet known as rashbre central - that was what 'Watching the detectives' post was really about.

Then, fellow "henchman" Rob across at Bob's Books created an appeal for a few reviews to bump his fledgling site, so I buzzed a trilogy across, including the one for Roger's book.

Along with a suggestion that we'd set 'The Author Trap', whereby we suggest the author takes a look at our review...And before you know it, he's in an interview we had pre-posted to the site.

So a really big "thank you" to Roger for spiritedly taking part and lucidly answering the questions. The FULL INTERVIEW is posted.

Now, follow this link to Amazon and click 'Buy'!

key thoughts

Have you ever done that trick with a car key where you can remote open the car from a really long distance?

Most remote keys work from about 10-15 metres (30-50 feet). However, you can double or treble this distance if you hold the key to your head when you plip it.

I don't know how it works, although I have some theories, but it would be good if someone knows the real answer. And its a great party trick when the car is right at the end of a long car park after a tiring day.